A roulette is a type of engraver's tool originating in 18th century Europe, for maniere de crayon, the technique for the reproduction of chalk and pastel drawings. The tools generally consist of a textured rotational wheel, fitted with a handle and used for drawing on a metal plate to be used in printing. The roulette tools currently available prior to the present invention create marks that fall into two basic categories: irregular but coarse and sparse, or, regular and mechanical. The marking surface used for the irregular marking tools use a coarsely textured ferrous wheel bearing some resemblance to chipped flint implements. Those tools that create regular marks employ steel wheels, which have been machined either with parallel lines or types of knurling. The marks that these wheels produce are mechanical in appearance. Those wheels having parallel lines machined into them originated as a tool used to touch-up photomechanical line-dot screens in commercial printing. These two referred to groups of markings often fail to integrate well with other fine art printmaking techniques, and typically can necessitate the use of etchants in order to create traces of the required depth.
Reference characters included in the above drawings indicate corresponding parts as discussed herein. The description herein illustrates preferred embodiments of the invention. However, the description herein is not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in any manner. It should be understood that the above listed FIGs. are not necessarily to scale, and details that are not necessary for an understanding of the present invention by one skilled in the technology of the invention, or render other details difficult to perceive, may have been omitted.